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She looked down, as if disappointed but not surprised at the condescension in his tone. “Goodbye then. I always pray for you.”
“I’m sure you have many more deserving souls worthy of your petitions.”
She made no reply as she exited the door. He shut it behind her and returned to his desk, but found it hard to resume his work. Drat her intrusion!
He didn’t want to have the past tormenting him. He’d achieved an emotional distance from his father and was certainly not going to let a half sibling he hardly saw, let alone hardly knew, upset the careful balance.
He was on the threshold of beginning something new. He would prove to society that he was fully capable of filling his brother’s shoes. With a lovely young wife at his side, and offspring soon to follow, there was absolutely nothing he need fear.
A few afternoons later Gillian entered the drawing room for tea. Once again she found Lord Skylar calmly seated with her mother and Templeton, one of her mother’s fine Sevres cups and saucers balanced upon his knee.
“Yes,” he told them, “she is of a very old pedigree, a direct descendant of a spaniel of my great-grandfather’s on our Hertfordshire estate. She’ll make a great companion for Lady Gillian.” He reached down to stroke the dog’s neck. “A very docile creature, I assure you.”
Gillian could only stare at the “creature” in question. The rescued dog, chestnut coat shiny and clean, sat at Lord Skylar’s booted feet. At that moment, it caught sight of Gillian. Immediately it jumped up, almost knocking over the edge of a silver tray on the table before Lord Skylar.
“Sit!” Lord Skylar’s tone was more effective than a whip. The dog and owner stared at each other a few seconds—seconds in which Gillian’s hand went to her throat and she held her breath, fearful of her mother’s reaction. Her mother leaned forward in her chair as soon as the dog had moved, itching to have it removed from the room, no doubt.
Gillian could feel her whole body willing the dog to obey Lord Skylar. The seconds dragged on until finally the dog whined and, with a longing look toward Gillian, sat back down before Lord Skylar.
He smiled at the animal—a smile that broke the austerity of his features—and reached across the table for a biscuit. Breaking off a piece, he held it out to the dog, who gobbled it up eagerly.
“Good girl,” Lord Skylar told the dog, giving her neck another rubbing.
“Good afternoon, Lady Gillian,” he said, only then turning his attention to Gillian. “If you’d like to greet your new pet, she is eager to slather you with gratitude for your timely rescue.”
Gillian needed no other prompting. She was at the dog’s side in an instant, kneeling beside her and receiving its wet greeting. “Hello, there,” she said, not knowing what to call the animal, so she continued petting it and crooning over it.
She looked up at Lord Skylar with a wide smile. She hadn’t heard anything from him since the afternoon outing and lived in terror that he’d inform her the dog had been found a home out in the country somewhere. He gave her a brief smile and turned his attention back to her mother.
“I am in the midst of a training program since the dog arrived from our estate. She was given a bit of a freer rein out in the country. We’ll have her well behaved for the drawing room in no time.” Again his glance crossed Gillian’s and she saw the glint in his eye. She looked over at her mother, and she detected nothing but alarm in her eyes. Good, she thought in relief. At least her mother didn’t see the mockery in Lord Skylar’s eyes.
“Well, I don’t know…” she began in dubious tones, her hand playing nervously with the gold chain about her neck. “We’ve never had any animals in the house.”
“Every fine lady has a drawing room pet. Most are lap dogs that do nothing but yap at the guests and nip at their heels. This one is a real dog. She’ll be a good companion for your daughter when she goes out walking.”
“I don’t know…” her mother repeated. “She has Templeton.”
Gillian and Lord Skylar both glanced at the woman in question, and Gillian was hard-pressed not to burst out laughing.
“I assure you, Miss Templeton,” Lord Skylar said smoothly, “you will feel safer with a well-behaved watchdog between the two of you. You’ll fear no cutpurses or pickpockets. With the parks so crowded with riffraff during the festivities, you need a fearless animal with you.”
Templeton smiled, her rouged cheeks bright. “Oh, yes! I am so grateful for your thoughtfulness. The streets are an absolute peril nowadays for a lady.”
“Templeton!” her mother said sharply. Then she cleared her throat and turned back to Lord Skylar. “As I said, we’re not at all sure we can keep…her. We’re not accustomed to pets in the house. Perhaps in the mews…?” she suggested in a faltering voice.
“Oh, Mama, look at her! She’s so clean. And look how quietly she sits. Mayn’t I try her in the house?”
Lord Skylar ignored Gillian’s spirited tone. “I have received my invitation to Prinny’s grand fete for the Duke of Wellington. My father and I would like to request the pleasure of your company that night. We would be honored to escort you and Lady Gillian.”
“Indeed. The Regent’s fete?”
Gillian watched her mother’s dignified features. Not by a hint did she give away the fact that they had not as yet received their invitation, and that her mother looked assiduously through the pile of mail each day for the coveted invitation.
“Yes, on the twenty-first,” replied Sky smoothly. He took another sip of tea. “I hear Nash is working furiously to complete the special hall at Carlton House in time. I’m afraid it will be frightfully crowded, but I thought as a memorable historical event, it would interest Lady Gillian.” He glanced her way again. “Something to tell her grandchildren. The day she curtsied before Wellington.”
“Yes, most assuredly,” her mother agreed. “We shall be happy to have your escort.”
“Thank you, my lady.” He set the delicate porcelain cup and saucer down. “I would beg leave to take Lady Gillian with me for a turn about the square to acquaint her with her new pet. I can go over some of the commands I’ve taught the dog.”
He stood. “We shall be merely down below, in plain view, if Miss Templeton should care to sit here and observe us.” He moved to the window and pushed aside the curtain.
“Very well, but don’t keep her long.”
Down in the square below, Lord Skylar relinquished the dog’s leash to Gillian as they walked beneath the linden trees. She took it eagerly. “She’s beautiful. What did you do to get her coat so shiny?”
“I gave her to a groom and told him to make sure to rid it of any fleas. I presume he bathed it, deloused it and fed it.”
“And your father’s dogs, how did they behave?”
“Apparently they have accepted her.”
She looked down shyly. “I don’t know how to thank you.” She giggled, remembering her mother’s losing battle before Lord Skylar’s smooth, invincible logic. “I never thought I’d see the day Mama would agree to an indoor pet.”
“She hasn’t exactly agreed yet,” he corrected her.
“She will. After dangling the prince’s dinner in front of her,” she added with a sly glance at him. “I would call that a masterful stroke.”
He shrugged. “You were invited.”
“Not yet, we haven’t been.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I’m sure we shall receive an invitation,” she added quickly. “We have gone to all the major receptions there since Prinny became regent. But I believe since Papa passed away, the royal summonses are slower in arriving. Mama begins to fidget as the time draws closer.”
“I am glad, then, to be able to relieve her mind.”
“I have never met the Duke of Wellington,” Gillian marveled. “I can hardly wait to meet such a brave man. He has saved England and much of the Continent.”
“Have you been following the campaigns closely?” he asked, slanting her a curious look.
She could feel the color rising in her cheeks. “Yes, just as everyone else in England has.” Not caring to delve into the topic too deeply, she returned to the previous matter. “To think Mama has agreed to an abandoned stray from the streets!”
Taking the change of topic in stride, he said, “This dog is of good stock.”
“Oh, yes, the finest,” she said, laughter bubbling up. “If you are to be believed, she can probably trace her lineage back to Charles the First’s favorite pooch.”
“I may have exaggerated the facts to your mother, but I didn’t altogether lie. This dog has some illustrious spaniel blood. If it has been, er, tainted along the way with some lesser-known varieties, that doesn’t take away from the fact that she’s almost purebred.”
“‘Almost’—that won’t convince Mother.”
“Then let us hope she believed my story.”
She laughed again. After a moment, she turned to him. “You can be very charming and believable when you want to be. Do you only do it when you wish to obtain something from someone?”
“That usually is the case.”
“I think you could get almost anything you wanted if you set your mind to it.”
“Do you?” he asked noncommittally.
“Don’t you set your mind to it very often?” she asked, remembering his ungracious behavior when they’d first been introduced.
“It is wearing, I’ll admit. And so often not worth the trouble, wouldn’t you agree? Or are you yet so young that you haven’t suffered any disillusion?”
She remained silent, preferring to concentrate on holding the dog in check on its leash.
But Lord Skylar was not finished with the thought. “I still find it hard to believe you have remained free these years in London. There is no young gentleman who has stolen your heart? No drawerfuls of avowals of everlasting love and no keepsakes—a lock of hair, a monogrammed handkerchief…?”
“No, there is nothing!” she answered a little too warmly.
“A young lady with your attributes?” he asked in disbelief. “Your mother hasn’t kept you that locked up. And Templeton, no matter how forbidding she might be, wouldn’t put off a true suitor—”
“My father would have wanted me to wait for someone—” She stopped.
“Yes?” he prompted when she didn’t continue. “Someone like…?”
“Like you,” she said on a moment’s inspiration. Maybe if she flattered his vanity, he would be satisfied and let the subject drop.
He chuckled. “Wealth and a title—have there been a dearth of good candidates fulfilling those requirements these last three seasons?”
“Well, with the war on, you know, so many young men have gone off to Spain.”
“But not elder sons.”
She could feel his keen eyes on her. “Well, there was no one,” she repeated. “Why haven’t you married all those years out there in the Indies?” she asked, turning to him. “I can’t believe there were no suitable candidates out there.”
He prodded at a fallen leaf with his walking stick. “Perhaps I didn’t like what I saw of matrimony.”
“What do you mean?” she asked puzzled.
“Matrimony among our class seems to be a hypocritical arrangement between two individuals who agree to turn a blind eye to the other’s dalliances. Forgive the bluntness, but so often it is only one of the partners who gets to enjoy the pleasures of extramarital affairs, while the other is forced to suffer in silence.”
For someone who had never been married, he spoke as if he were acquainted firsthand with that kind of pain. It was not in the tone of voice, which had retained its airy, slightly amused quality as if he were commenting on a light romantic comedy. But the words themselves were, as he had said, blunt, and certainly improper to be speaking to a young, unmarried lady.
“I know many things go on in society,” she began slowly. “I believe my parents were happily married, however unfashionable that might appear,” she said, wanting to believe it, despite her mother’s cynical words of advice. Could she have cheated on dear Papa? No. Gillian wouldn’t give credence to the idea.
Lord Skylar swung his walking stick to and fro along the gravel path. “That is indeed a feat, if indeed improbable.”
“I could never consider such a thing of Papa! I know he was faithful to my mother,” she stated with finality.
“Well, for the sake of your memories, I hope you are right.” He smiled, a smile that had a hint of tenderness in it. “So, you see why I have retained my bachelorhood. Besides, I had an elder brother to fulfill the duties of heir. He, alas, died childless.”
Gillian turned to her new pet, tiring of the topic of marriage and fidelity. “What shall we name her?” she asked with a tug on the leash.
“We?”
“Well, you are part owner, you know.”
“I haven’t the foggiest. I’ll allow you the honor.”
Suddenly the animal in question spied a squirrel scampering up a thick trunk. She dashed toward it, yanking the leash out of Gillian’s hands.
“Heel!” Lord Skylar’s sharp command brought the dog to an immediate halt, though she whined in protest, her nose sniffing forward. Sky picked up the leash.
“Good girl,” he told the dog, bending down to pet her and offering her a biscuit from his pocket. He then rose and took over the leash. The dog strained toward the tree where she’d spied the squirrel. It was no longer in sight.
“I’m sorry, dear,” Gillian spoke to her pet. “But you’ll never catch it now. It’s gone up the tree,” she explained, petting the animal’s neck.
They resumed their walk. “You’d do best to train her early. Keep a firm hand on her and reward her when she obeys,” Lord Skylar advised.
He gave her a wry look. “You’ll probably mother her to death, indulge her every whim, and end up with a spoiled, ill-behaved mutt on your hands.”
She merely laughed at him. She was beginning to suspect he had a rather tender heart behind that detached demeanor. Perhaps he wouldn’t make such an awful husband.
Tertius walked along the streets of Mayfair after he’d escorted Gillian and her new pet back home. The day was a splendid summer one. He passed the shops on Bond Street. The sidewalks were filled with shoppers. He stopped to glance in at a window or two, but his mind was distracted. He kept thinking of his impending marriage. It no longer seemed a burdensome task.
In less than a fortnight he’d gone from outrage at his father’s preposterous announcement that Tertius must not only marry posthaste but that the bride was already picked out, to a sense of anticipation at his forthcoming nuptials.
The chit was getting to him, he realized, looking at the latest satirical prints in Ackermann’s bow window. He continued his walk, wondering when this shift had occurred. His mind kept going to the afternoon of their outing, her smudged face turned up to him in entreaty, seeking his help and protection for a poor, starved creature.
He shook his head, still finding it hard to believe how easily she had bent him to her wishes.
Or had his feelings begun to change even earlier in the day, when she’d looked down at her plate in the tea garden and shyly told him how much she wanted a home and children of her own?
He tried to rationalize his feelings. It was reasonable to expect him to be married at his age, with his new position. Lady Gillian was not only a very appealing young lady, but she fulfilled all the requisites of wealth and lineage to be joined to the Caulfield line.
If the amiability between the two of them continued to grow, there should be no reason for their marriage not to succeed.
Another inner voice warned him that undoubtedly his parents’ marriage had started out this way. At one time they must have had a regard for each other. He knew his mother had loved his father until the marquess had destroyed that love with his repeated infidelities.
Tertius turned left onto Piccadilly, telling himself it was too pleasant a day for such pessimistic thoughts. He reached Sackville Street and headed for Gray’s, where his family was accustomed to buying their jewelry.
He looked at various pieces until finding what he wanted.
Yes, the emerald pendant and earrings would look lovely against Lady Gillian’s pale skin. He also chose a set of wedding bands, telling the jeweler the bride would be in later for a fitting. At the last minute, a gold ring mounted with a diamond and ruby caught his eye. He purchased it as well.
Telling the jeweler to have the other things delivered later, he tucked the jeweler’s box with the ruby and diamond ring into a pocket and left the store. He would present the ring to Lady Gillian at the Regent’s fete.
